With Sunday's lineup, Bobby Valentine declares a true New Order with the Red Sox

APBoston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine shuffled the lineup Sunday, choosing his own instinct over stat sheets and assuming players do not need to be told of changes in advance.

DETROIT - Mark down April 8, 2012 as the day the sabermetrics era ended with the Boston Red Sox.

Also eradicated was Terry Francona's practice of alerting players in advance that they would get a day off.

A dismal 13-12 loss in 11 innings to Detroit at least featured an awakened offense that sprayed 18 hits.

Dismissing Nick Punto's career .169 average as a leadoff hitter as irrelevant, manager Bobby Valentine put Punto at the top of the order.

Punto went 3-for-6 with three RBIs and a sacrifice fly. His RBI hit in the 11th gave Boston an 11-10 lead.

"I think Nick will hit .260 (at leadoff), so he's got a lot of hits coming,'' Valentine said with a grin before the game.

"He's a sparky type of player, a battler.''

Valentine said he almost never takes into account a player's career average in a certain lineup spot. Rather, he trusts his own instinct and experience.

Batting Punto leadoff meant moving most of the other regulars down a notch. Darnell McDonald and Kelly Shoppach got their first starts, the result of Valentine's plan to give all his players an early taste of action.

"It was kind of a planned routine,'' he said.

Still, when Valentine was whether he would tell a player like Kevin Youkilis on Saturday that he would sit on Sunday, the manager was coy.

"I didn't know myself until this morning. I don't know how (a player) would know,'' he said.

Valentine's approach runs in direct contrast to that of Terry Francona, who put a premium on letting players know in advance what to expect.

He would have given a day's notice to Youkilis, who sat on Sunday. Batting Punto leadoff in defiance of career numbers also signaled the end of allegiance to the team's reliance on advanced statistical data, a Red Sox trademark.

Unlike Francona, Valentine sees no need to tell players in advance of lineup changes, or whether they are playing at all. The lineup is posted on the wall, and that's that.

"I'm assuming they can handle it. A lot of players are involved, so that would be a lot of conversations,'' he said.

He also said if he found a player would benefit from such a conversation, he would have no problem doing it.

McDonald played left field against Detroit righty Max Scherzer. The outfielder is a .212 lifetime hitter against right-handers, and has been a platoon player in Boston.

McDonald went 1-for-5. He hit .447 in 38 at-bats in spring training.

"Most of his at-bats in the spring came against right-handers. If he's ever ready to start against righties, it's now,'' Valentine said.

The Red Sox manager is known to go against conventional thought. Even as he summoned closer Alfredo Aceves with a three-run lead in the ninth, he kept warming up other pitchers.

In Sunday's lineup, every starter except Shoppach had at least one hit. Punto, David Ortiz and Mike Aviles had three each for the Red Sox, who overcame a 4-0 first-inning deficit and led 9-7 after Adrian Gonzalez' two-run homer in the sixth.